Pets
Related: About this forumTinkling outside the box
As many of you know, my cat Kidley (age unknown, but senior, according to the vet), has kidney disease. He was first diagnosed about two years ago, and he has deteriorated by stages, but now there's a new issue.
He mostly sleeps now, sometimes so quietly that I have to check to see if he's breathing. However, when he's awake, he's awake, and loves being brushed. He is insistent on mealtimes, wakes me up in the morning, accompanies me to bed at night,but hardly eats anything unless it's real meat.
As far as I can tell, he's totally deaf.
He has long been one to poop in random places, using my bed so often that I cover it with a shower curtain. (He hasn't done that lately.)
However, he has a new bad habit. A while ago, I wrote a question about his meowing loudly at night, and someone (I forget who, but thank you!) suggested that he had lost his night vision. Sure enough, it stopped when I put a night light in the kitchen near his food and water bowls and left the bathroom light on overnight.
Well, now he is peeing just outside the litterbox. I started surrounding the litterbox with puppy pads, and that seemed to work for a while. But now, whenever I get up in the morning or when I come home, I find yellow puddles on the puppy pads as well as wet littler.
However, he has never wet the bathroom floor or the puppy pads when I am home.
Is he just mad that I'm not home? Then why does he do it at night--not in any other room, but just outside the litterbox--when I clearly am at home?
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)Has your kitty been to the vet about this? Could it be a urinary tract infection? That is usually my first thought when this happens, but with kidney disease, there could be other issues. Could he have trouble getting in and out of the litter box due to weakness?
I would have the vet check for anything that is obvious before I took advice from us. But it sounds like you have a handle on dealing with it without too much frustration...the training pads are a good idea.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)He uses the litterbox without any trouble.
I'm wondering if he is peeing so much that sometimes he doesn't quite make it to the box.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)And it does sound like it is a behavioral issue, which is the hardest thing to deal with. As a mommy who lost a kitty to renal failure, I think that you should be prepared for the inevitable. My baby went downhill very quickly after she went blind. That seems to be the final stages of kidney failure. Just love him and deal with the problems instead of trying to change the behavior because I don't think that you will have this issue for a long time. I hope that I am wrong.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)ginnyinWI
(17,276 posts)(by the way I believe that was me with the advice about the night light )
Maybe now that he's old and ill he gets stressed by being alone, even at night when you are home. If he had a UTI then he'd be doing it night and day, whether you were there or not, so I'm thinking it has to be in his head.
When my old cat had kidney failure he started pooping in random places. I think he gone into a state of confusion or dementia or something due to the disease. He always pee'd in his box though, thankfully. I had moved everything into the kitchen for his convenience, so his litter box, bed and food and water dishes were all within about 8-10 feet of each other.
I just remembered something else: he started sitting and sleeping in a corner of the dining room--really unusual behavior. So something wasn't quite right.
He passed away at age 18, about six months after being diagnosed with renal failure.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)and he does get anxious when he can't see me, to the extent that he will start meowing when I go into my office. I come out and show myself, and then he quiets down, but then even later the same day, he will meow when I'm not visible.
ginnyinWI
(17,276 posts)He can't hear you from the next room. They say that deafness is much more isolating (for humans) than blindness is.